Thursday, April 20, 2017 5:30pm - 6:30pm

IBES 130 (Carmichael Auditorium)

"Kings and Overkings: The Political Culture of the Classic Maya 250-900 CE" By Simon Martin

Classic Maya political organization has been a contested topic for almost a century and, even though advances in deciphering the Maya script has brought many of these debates to a close, much remains to be done. Only now, with greatly improved textual and material data-sets, are we able to move from basic questions to the richer and more complex ones that lie beyond. This talk describes how unravelling complex political hierarchies continues to offer new ways to understand this ancient American civilization.